Mr Hunt was laying out his proposals for establishing American-style local news in the UK, with up to 80 towns and cities - including populations as small as Coventry and Sunderland - to receive their own television news as early as 2013.

The plans will involve setting up a new national channel, possibly called Channel 6, which would broadcast two or three hours a day of local content in each area alongside a nationwide schedule of programmes for the rest of the day.

Mr Hunt wants the new channel to start broadcasting in early 2013.

He said that, once the new local news services are up and running, he would be "relaxed" about the future of regional television news programmes on the traditional channels.

"I would want to leave it to the public sector broadcasters [the BBC and ITV] who run it to make their decision as to whether they wish to continue with it," Mr Hunt told the Oxford Media Convention.

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"At the moment, it is very precious to everyone because it is the most local that it gets. What I'm coming forward with today is a solution that is much more local than anything we've had before, and therefore I think would then leave PSBs with a much freer hand to decide what they thought was the appropriate future for their regional offerings."

ITV has already scaled back its regional news offering, and the BBC abandoned plans for a local video news service. However one of the BBC's public purposes is to reflect different areas of the UK, meaning that it is unlikely that the corporation would abandon regional news provision entirely.

"Local television is one area – perhaps the only area – in which our outstandingly successful media sector has been outstandingly unsuccessful in responding to consumer needs," Mr Hunt said. He added that the Tory government in 1955 had been wrong to license the original ITV on a regional rather than a local level, citing the success of US television networks which have local affiliates in each city.

Mr Hunt also announced a wide-ranging review of media regulation, which may involve a clampdown on inappropriate websites for children. "I don’t believe you can regulate the internet but I do want to look at what can be done to strengthen child protection on the internet and whether the structures we have in place are the best way to give reassurance to parents that their children are not going to have easy access to unsuitable content," said Mr Hunt.

The proposals could affect video-sharing websites such as YouTube, as well as new internet-connected TV set-top boxes such as YouView.

"I am prepared to radically rethink the way we do things," said Mr Hunt. "To take a fresh look at what we regulate, whether we regulate, and how we regulate. As parents we want programmes to be suitable for our children. As citizens we want impartial news. And as consumers we want high-quality programmes we know and trust. Whether we’re watching a broadcast live or though catch-up services, via a TV or a computer, it’s the content that matters, rather than the delivery mechanism."

Mr Hunt said that there would be green paper by the end of this year, with the ensuing Communications Act to be in force by 2015.